Kid clean vs. mom clean 😆(though I actually find vacuuming very therapeutic so tend to doing it myself). The “kid cleaned” downstairs bathroom probably needs a “mom clean”. And our tree is still up too. Maybe this afternoon... but I do just want to be warm and sleepy.
Also, I wonder if part of this “mess as justification” stems from the fact that there’s an awful lot of people who 1) don’t really live in their homes, but use them as a place to sleep, and 2) have a warped idea of what normal aesthetics are due to social media. Every once in a while I do go over to someone’s house where it looks like a magazine, but they almost always have less than three children and a much larger space. So it’s not that the mess doesn’t exist, but that it can be put out of view much more easily. We tidy/reset/clean all the time, but at 1:30 pm on a school day it invariably looks like something exploded.
Yes, I agree with everything you said! I live in a very small, too cramped space with seven people, six of us always being here. Or at least spending the majority of our time here. So obviously it's a mess. And there are no extra rooms that can just hold stuff! We tidy and clean a lot, and the mess gets on my nerves just like anyone else, but I've long been over the idea of everything being clean all at once. It's much better to live in reality!
Yes! Although if I'm perfectly honest I may have let the book vs. cleaning barometer swing a little hard over the weekend 😜. Guess I know what I'm doing this afternoon. Maybe I'll get on board with audiobooks yet...
"Everyone’s house is messy when they live in it, you’re not original"
I am laughing, and we also got a ton of snow and have negative temperatures next week. We were supposed to get a new furnace installed then. lol
The whole genre of writing on the life and person behind C.S. Lewis' public work is fascinating. And I've only been exposed to it in recent years. Interested to check out that essay.
Haha, I get snarky because I sometimes feel gaslit by the way people act on instagram as if a messy house is just so crazy! It's not. As someone who's raising teenagers and enduring constant battles for drama I feel a calling to tell people when stuff is not a big deal very strongly.
Are you getting the furnace soon? Maybe now you should just wait till it fully warms up to replace it. Haha, I always have weird anxiety when things need to be replaced as if the new thing will won't work at all somehow.
That'd be a worst-case scenario, right? No furnace at 0 degrees. lol We bought the house with all the old appliances and things tapping out their lifespan after the previous owner was here for 20 years. :) It will happen this week.
There's also the distinct messiness of constantly having people home most of the day, as opposed to everyone being gone and making messes elsewhere. I remind myself that we live life in here every day!!
It's beginning to warm up now, so I won't worry for your life. God speed, new furnace!
Honestly, I know people who've stopped homeschooling because of the constant mess. It's really tough. Haha, in my whole career as a mother I think I've had at max two whole days when all my kids were gone somewhere at the same time and I was actually home, and the best part was cleaning the kitchen once and just getting to walk around a clean house.
Wow that CS Lewis article was fascinating. It has always been quite clear to me from his works that he had a rather incomplete, sometimes overtly hostile, view of women. (Will never forgive him for what he did to Susan!!) This gives a lot of context. And it is sort of comforting in a way to see we're all working uphill, bumbling along, sometimes in fraught relationships. Doing the best we can.
And I SEE what you did there! I'm totally down for marketing this trip as an a way of protesting AI and the general decline of Western civilization, ha. Come be human and embodied with us!!!
Omg Susan. I can't. I still can't. I definitely have always had issues with his women characters, and I used to think he was just an ignorant man, but now after reading more of his biography I have more sympathy for his outlook. I think he's very right about women in the space trilogy and till we have faces, but after reading his and Joy's biographies last year I can safely say that I do not understand human relationships very well!
I agree with you about wanting more story wise from Maestro. I was impressed with the costume/hair/makeup transitions through the decades and of course the music. But the story just seemed a little lacking for some reason. I was underwhelmed by the movie as a whole.
Do you think it was just a film making choice? I liked so many parts of it, but the whole left me feeling underwhelmed as well. I'm glad it wasn't just me!
I don’t know what it was. I guess I don’t know what the movie was trying to say or show. Just his life as it was? But I don’t really know what the big picture was.
It’s times like this that I wonder why we live in this frozen tundra. Although the weather does keep me inside cleaning up the last of Christmas. A good podcast really helps with chores. Have you listened to “Sold a Story”? It’s so mind blowing, I can’t stop listening.
Really, when it's arctic temperatures outside is about the only time I feel like cleaning is a good use of my time! I made progress over the weekend that I'll take for sure. Maybe this week I'll mop floors!
I really loved "Laurus" but couldn't get into "A History of the Island." I think I just didn't have the energy at the time to keep track of the sweepingness of it. I'm looking forward to trying it again sometime; I would love to hear what you think when you finish it!
I totally agree about the chores, cleaning, etc. Both rants.
And thanks so much for mentioning me! (I think there's not a link there to the actual piece, by the way -- just the link via my name?) I think part of writing that post for me was about reminding myself that, hey, we do have these little invitations to joy, and I need to appreciate them!
I do think A History Of The Island requires a certain headspace going in - I tried it at the wrong time and abandoned it, too. So much going on in a way was entirely different than Laurus!! Perhaps I'll try another time.
I think it's probably because the structure of A History Of The Island is not a straightforward novel, and it really is a history interspersed with personal reflections. It's definitely a slow going book for me, but so far I think it's very much worth the effort. Very well written and his ideas about history and progress are so good and medieval. But definitely work!
"Also, don’t get me started on the constant display of “messy homes” as some kind of “look how crazy my life” is content. Everyone’s house is messy when they live in it, you’re not original, it’s not the end of the world. End second rant."
YES!! Thank you. Curated messiness is a fad that needs to end.
Kid clean vs. mom clean 😆(though I actually find vacuuming very therapeutic so tend to doing it myself). The “kid cleaned” downstairs bathroom probably needs a “mom clean”. And our tree is still up too. Maybe this afternoon... but I do just want to be warm and sleepy.
Also, I wonder if part of this “mess as justification” stems from the fact that there’s an awful lot of people who 1) don’t really live in their homes, but use them as a place to sleep, and 2) have a warped idea of what normal aesthetics are due to social media. Every once in a while I do go over to someone’s house where it looks like a magazine, but they almost always have less than three children and a much larger space. So it’s not that the mess doesn’t exist, but that it can be put out of view much more easily. We tidy/reset/clean all the time, but at 1:30 pm on a school day it invariably looks like something exploded.
Yes, I agree with everything you said! I live in a very small, too cramped space with seven people, six of us always being here. Or at least spending the majority of our time here. So obviously it's a mess. And there are no extra rooms that can just hold stuff! We tidy and clean a lot, and the mess gets on my nerves just like anyone else, but I've long been over the idea of everything being clean all at once. It's much better to live in reality!
Yes! Although if I'm perfectly honest I may have let the book vs. cleaning barometer swing a little hard over the weekend 😜. Guess I know what I'm doing this afternoon. Maybe I'll get on board with audiobooks yet...
"Everyone’s house is messy when they live in it, you’re not original"
I am laughing, and we also got a ton of snow and have negative temperatures next week. We were supposed to get a new furnace installed then. lol
The whole genre of writing on the life and person behind C.S. Lewis' public work is fascinating. And I've only been exposed to it in recent years. Interested to check out that essay.
Haha, I get snarky because I sometimes feel gaslit by the way people act on instagram as if a messy house is just so crazy! It's not. As someone who's raising teenagers and enduring constant battles for drama I feel a calling to tell people when stuff is not a big deal very strongly.
Are you getting the furnace soon? Maybe now you should just wait till it fully warms up to replace it. Haha, I always have weird anxiety when things need to be replaced as if the new thing will won't work at all somehow.
That'd be a worst-case scenario, right? No furnace at 0 degrees. lol We bought the house with all the old appliances and things tapping out their lifespan after the previous owner was here for 20 years. :) It will happen this week.
There's also the distinct messiness of constantly having people home most of the day, as opposed to everyone being gone and making messes elsewhere. I remind myself that we live life in here every day!!
It's beginning to warm up now, so I won't worry for your life. God speed, new furnace!
Honestly, I know people who've stopped homeschooling because of the constant mess. It's really tough. Haha, in my whole career as a mother I think I've had at max two whole days when all my kids were gone somewhere at the same time and I was actually home, and the best part was cleaning the kitchen once and just getting to walk around a clean house.
Wow that CS Lewis article was fascinating. It has always been quite clear to me from his works that he had a rather incomplete, sometimes overtly hostile, view of women. (Will never forgive him for what he did to Susan!!) This gives a lot of context. And it is sort of comforting in a way to see we're all working uphill, bumbling along, sometimes in fraught relationships. Doing the best we can.
And I SEE what you did there! I'm totally down for marketing this trip as an a way of protesting AI and the general decline of Western civilization, ha. Come be human and embodied with us!!!
Omg Susan. I can't. I still can't. I definitely have always had issues with his women characters, and I used to think he was just an ignorant man, but now after reading more of his biography I have more sympathy for his outlook. I think he's very right about women in the space trilogy and till we have faces, but after reading his and Joy's biographies last year I can safely say that I do not understand human relationships very well!
I agree with you about wanting more story wise from Maestro. I was impressed with the costume/hair/makeup transitions through the decades and of course the music. But the story just seemed a little lacking for some reason. I was underwhelmed by the movie as a whole.
Do you think it was just a film making choice? I liked so many parts of it, but the whole left me feeling underwhelmed as well. I'm glad it wasn't just me!
I don’t know what it was. I guess I don’t know what the movie was trying to say or show. Just his life as it was? But I don’t really know what the big picture was.
It’s times like this that I wonder why we live in this frozen tundra. Although the weather does keep me inside cleaning up the last of Christmas. A good podcast really helps with chores. Have you listened to “Sold a Story”? It’s so mind blowing, I can’t stop listening.
I'm looking up Sold a Story right now!
Really, when it's arctic temperatures outside is about the only time I feel like cleaning is a good use of my time! I made progress over the weekend that I'll take for sure. Maybe this week I'll mop floors!
I really loved "Laurus" but couldn't get into "A History of the Island." I think I just didn't have the energy at the time to keep track of the sweepingness of it. I'm looking forward to trying it again sometime; I would love to hear what you think when you finish it!
I totally agree about the chores, cleaning, etc. Both rants.
And thanks so much for mentioning me! (I think there's not a link there to the actual piece, by the way -- just the link via my name?) I think part of writing that post for me was about reminding myself that, hey, we do have these little invitations to joy, and I need to appreciate them!
Gah! I’m sorry I messed up the link! I’m gone all day and I’ll try to fix it when I’m in a waiting room!
No worries! It makes me happy that you are not sitting by the laptop or phone obsessing over your posts and reactions, which would be no way to live.
It's no biggie and nothing urgent.
I do think A History Of The Island requires a certain headspace going in - I tried it at the wrong time and abandoned it, too. So much going on in a way was entirely different than Laurus!! Perhaps I'll try another time.
I agree. Some books are like that -- they're good books, but it's just not quite the right time for a particular person to read them.
I think it's probably because the structure of A History Of The Island is not a straightforward novel, and it really is a history interspersed with personal reflections. It's definitely a slow going book for me, but so far I think it's very much worth the effort. Very well written and his ideas about history and progress are so good and medieval. But definitely work!
"Also, don’t get me started on the constant display of “messy homes” as some kind of “look how crazy my life” is content. Everyone’s house is messy when they live in it, you’re not original, it’s not the end of the world. End second rant."
YES!! Thank you. Curated messiness is a fad that needs to end.